Bethlehem Man Convicted Of Robbery And Assault

July 10, 1986|by GAY ELWELL, The Morning Call

A 40-year-old Bethlehem man, arrested in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in November on a fugitive warrant, was convicted yesterday of the Dec. 6, 1982, robbery of a popular Bethlehem restaurant and of assaulting its elderly owner.

But a Northampton County jury of seven women and five men acquitted Angel Acevedo, who had lived in the 1500 block of Elayne St., of attempted homicide in the shooting of the proprietor's 67-year-old niece, a barmaid and waitress at the Fillmore Restaurant.

The jury deliberated for about two hours before returning the verdict, following a trial presided over by Judge Robert A. Freedberg. Acevedo was returned to Northampton County Prison, where he has been held without bail since his return to Easton from San Juan on Jan. 6.

He was charged with attempted murder in the shooting of Julia Fortley, andwith aggravated assault on Theresa Kelemen, 83. Kelemen owns the Fillmore Restaurant, commonly known as Theresa's Bar, at 5th and Fillmore streets on Bethlehem's South Side. Both women were hospitalized after the attack.

Acevedo's attorney, Stanley Vasiliadis, presented no evidence or testimony on his behalf yesterday, and Acevedo declined, on his attorney's recommendation, to take the stand.

Acevedo had made several statements to law enforcement officials that he had committed the robbery and had shot Fortley. However, in his statements, to an FBI agent, a Northampton County detective accompanied by a state trooper, and to a Bethlehem police detective, he said the shooting had been an accident. In one statement, in which he implicated a conspirator whose true name he refused to divulge, he said he had gone into the bar himself because the alleged conspirator was "trigger-happy."

He said he got about $24 from the cash register in the bar.

He also told police that he planned to plead guilty to the charges against him to get the matter off his chest.

First Assistant District Attorney Mark Refowich, who represented the commonwealth, noted that Acevedo faces other charges stemming from burglaries in Bethlehem and Northampton. Proceedings in those matters will be conducted later.